Language Is Not The Problem

Get Serious!

May 01, 2006|By TONY GABRIELE Daily Press

I am as bemused as the next American about the notion some folks have of singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, but let me tell you: I'm still grappling with the problem of singing it in English.

Hey, I like our national anthem just fine, when somebody else is performing it; say, a good military band. Especially when they do it with just the woodwinds playing the "and the rockets' red glare" to "or flag was still there" part quietly and sweetly, and then the drums and brass rev up and come back in for the big finish. Gives me goosebumps every time.

No, the problem is when somebody asks me to sing it. Which will happen soon, since baseball season is here and I'll be going out to my first Tides game of the season before long.

The ballpark P.A. announcer will ask us ladies and gentlemen to please rise, and I'll stand up with everybody else in the grandstand, and my vocal cords will rear back, and ...

And I can't make it all the way through. The notes start so low and then reach so high. If I can get down to the "twilight's last gleaming" low notes, then I can't reach the "land of the free" high ones.

I'm like a batter who hits a fly ball toward the outfield stands, trying for a home run, but it gets caught on the warning track. It's just out of range. Bugs the dickens out of me.

I've even done vocal warm-up exercises before games, trying to stretch the vocal cords. Still can't quite do it.

I know I'm not the only one. It's why you hear so many people at the ballpark muttering their way through the national anthem. They know if they gave it a real shot, they'd sound like me, which is like a 13-year-old boy whose voice is changing on the spot.

We guys might be able to do it, if we dropped down an octave, which would mean singing the low notes really, really low. But if the several thousand men in the ballpark all did that, it would cause this deep low-frequency rumbling vibration, which might cause structural damage to Harbor Park. Those ramparts we watched would still be there, but the grandstand would collapse.

The oddest thing is they say this melody was originally an English drinking song. Can you imagine a bunch of drunks screeching out this tune? No wonder the laws in England used to make the pubs close early. This is why it's suggested from time to time that we need a different national anthem, one the average Joe can sing without sounding like an early exit on "American Idol."

Many conservatives would vote for "God Bless America," because they'd like to slip God in there. Some liberals would like "This Land Is Your Land," because it's the best patriotic song written by a left-wing folk singer.

If people want a good, singable patriotic song -- one that's even about the same war, the War of 1812, as "The Star-Spangled Banner" is -- I have a suggestion.

We could try Johnny Horton's 1959 hit song, "The Battle of New Orleans."

You remember: "In 1814 we took a little trip, Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip'."

It's a real patriotic rouser, all about how American patriots chased the bloody British on down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Which served them right, for putting those too-high notes in "The Star-Spangled Banner." We could march around the ballpark, singing it.

You don't suppose we're offending our British allies with all this War of 1812 stuff, do you? Maybe once in a while we could sing Johnny Horton's other big hit, "Sink the Bismarck." They'd like that.

But I expect we'll stick with the same old anthem. We've grown too attached to it.

Do you suppose it's easier to sing those high notes in Spanish? Probably not. Though I wonder what it would sound like, played by a mariachi band.

The only solution I can see, then, is for us to learn to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" in multi-part harmony. If I could sing "the land of the free" a third lower, I bet I could pull it off at the ballpark.

Every year, we will all get together for Spring Training National Anthem Choir Practice. How about it?

Otherwise, somebody needs to write an Italian-language "Star-Spangled Banner." Then Luciano Pavarotti can sing it for us.

Tony Gabriele can be reached at 247-4786 or by e-mail at tgabriele@dailypress.com *